


When the Mood Strikes

by redledgers



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Angst, Baking, Board Games, Drabble Collection, F/M, Fluff, Gyms, Hiding, Weight Lifting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 19:34:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6207727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redledgers/pseuds/redledgers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of filled prompts relating to Clintasha, Buckynat, and anyone else I come across. Chapters will be labelled with the name of the ship that prompt is for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Clintasha -- Gym AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Clintasha trying to one-up each other at the gym

It had started as a game, a fun way to blow off steam in the gym and make a daily event more interesting. Natasha was not one to be impressed with the weights the men around her were lifting. She already had to put up with their disgusting comments, and she wasn’t one to feel like she had to prove herself. She could probably deadlift most of them if she had the opportunity.

But one day, Natasha saw one of the men who frequented the gym around the same times she did, one who had never made comments or leached over her when she finished a routine with light yoga. She saw him lifting 40 pound dumbbells and picked the bench two over from him to use the 45 pound ones.

Two days later, he was using the 50 pound ones, and Natasha went for the next weight up. If he deadlifted 150 pounds, she lifted 175 pounds. The game continued for a month before she found a note in her locker from her competitor (did she want to know how he got in there?).

_You’re not helping my PT. Let me take you to coffee if you do that sort of thing._

He’d left his number and a name. 

Natasha smiled and shouldered her gym bag. Maybe she’d deadlift him over coffee.


	2. Clintasha -- Baking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Clint tries baking an apology cake and its a mess but its the thought that counts, right?

“Shit!” Flour exploded over the counter, and  _oh my god how did people do this on a daily basis?_ But still, he pressed on, despite the fact that none of these recipes warned him to be ready for impending flour explosions. It wasn’t likely to happen again anyway, he thought.

He’d be wrong, apparently, when he spilled vegetable oil on the floor and spent the better part of the baking time making the floor not slippery. When he finally managed to get the cake out of the oven and take it out of the pan, it broke in two, and he didn’t have frosting to stick it together. Instead, he carefully stacked it back together just in time to triumphantly present it to Natasha when she came into the apartment.

She grumpily slammed the door and looked up to see Clint covered in flour, grinning, and holding a cake out toward her.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he said in reference to their heated argument. “Baked you this cake to apologize. If you came back. If you didn’t I was probably gonna deliver it.”

“I came back for my jacket,” she said shortly, heading to the bedroom. She paused in the doorway and turned around to look at him.

He stood forlornly in the same place. “What?”

She burst out laughing. He couldn’t tell if she was laughing at him or at the cake or something else. Before he could say anything else, or slink into the kitchen, she managed to speak between gasping breaths. “I didn’t even know you owned flour.”


	3. Clintasha -- Board Game Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: board game night with everyone always gets intense bc these two competitive dorks

“It’s  _Monopoly_ ,” Clint whined, paying whatever taxes he landed on. “It shouldn’t be like this.”

“What, that you’re getting your ass kicked because you don’t know how to manage your money?” Natasha reorganized her stacks of fake money and then inspected her nails just to annoy him.

“Next time we’re playing in teams,” he mumbled.

Tony rolled the dice. “No one wants to compensate for your bad playing.”

“If Clint and Natasha teamed up, they’d balance each other out,” Steve pointed out from his place on the couch. He flipped to the next page in the book he was reading. “But only if they were both allowed to make the decisions.”

“I will not compromise with him,” Natasha declared. She leaned over to look at Steve’s extensive collection of board games. For someone who rarely participated when the team was around, he sure had a lot.

“You do in bed,” Clint said under his breath.

Steve fumbled with his book and Natasha glared at him. Then she smiled. “When we’re done with this, we should play twister next.”


	4. Clintasha -- Unassuming Domesticity

_The aroma of bread curled around the space, filling in the nooks and crannies otherwise occupied with a light layer of dust. He wakes in a bundle of blankets, unassuming domesticity, and pads out cautiously to investigate. She’s leaning against the counter reading a book while waiting for the bread to finish baking, lip bitten and brow furrowed in concentration._

_He thinks he’s never seen something so perfect in his life, amid the destruction and quiet moments. And when she notices him, she smiles, easy and sweet, and the slow moments between the lines becomes the foundation of who they are._


	5. Buckynat -- Hiding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "We’re hiding from the authorities and it’s very close quarters in here, I can feel your body against mine."

Suffice to say, neither of them _intended_ on being in this situation. But here they were, trapped together in an air duct, and neither wanted to explain why they’d chosen that hiding spot. Natasha was just grateful it was industrial, and thus wide enough for two.

She fidgeted quietly, mostly picking at the hem of his sleeve because she couldn’t really reach anything else. The FBI was casing the entire building but apparently had forgotten that the ceiling was a viable hiding spot. Or she was just too good. What she hadn’t expected was having company, because she’d thought they were coming after her.

They waited in silence until they were absolutely sure it was clear, and then he let out a small huff of relief. “Good thing they didn’t have a metal detector,” he laughed quietly.

Natasha would have asked but she realized that the sleeve she’d been playing with was covering a very shiny, very metal, arm. “Oh,” she breathed.

“You know, I’m kind of enjoying this, I’m not going to lie, but I’d also like to not spend the rest of my life in an air duct, so we should probably get out of here.” He shifted, trying to move in another direction.

Natasha was smaller; she wriggled further down the duct and peered through the vent. Methodically, she took it off and dropped lightly onto the table below. He poked his head through. “Name’s James. Friends call me Bucky.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And what would I be?”

He dropped out, landing harder than she. “Hopefully going out for a drink with me tonight? Seems we might have some shared life experience.”


	6. Clintasha--Clint adopts a puppy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Clint brings home a puppy.

Clint was somehow late coming back from training. Natasha grumbled and went to reheat the takeout she’d ordered. Her intention was to have the food arrive when he did. But here she was with boxes of Thai food and no Clint. He wasn’t picking up his phone either, but he rarely made sure it was charged before he left the apartment anyway.

She was just taking the last container out of the microwave when he came into the living room, arms full. “Clint, where have you been?” she called out, bringing the food out to the coffee table. She stopped and stared at him. “What is that.”

Clint looked down at his arms and held out a wriggling tan puppy. “This,” he said proudly, “is Lucky.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Clint, we can’t take care of a dog.”

He pouted and put the puppy on the ground. Immediately, it bounded over to Natasha, barking and trying to get picked up. “He’s housetrained, part of a litter that was being hoarded. Shelter was practically giving them away for free.”

Her heart sank. “Shit, Clint.”

Clint looked at the food. “I’m starved.” He stepped over the excited puppy and sat down on the couch.

“He’s not sleeping in our bed,” she said after a moment. Lucky had decided that her foot was the perfect place to sit, and he looked up at her happily. “And you’re in charge of finding him a place to stay when we have to leave.”


	7. Clintasha -- I never want to see this again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: The amount of alcohol I'll have to drink to forget this would kill me.

“The amount of alcohol I’d need to drink to make me forget about this would literally kill me,” Natasha said blandly, standing in the bathroom doorway, arms folded. She did not look amused.

Clint shrugged. Well, not that she could see it behind the large volume of pink bubbles. They overflowed from the tub, spilling into the toilet and onto the floor, and Clint was, for some goddamn reason, wearing a shower cap with rubber ducks. “You can’t really get drunk, babe. I think you’re stuck with this image.” He grinned, bracing himself against the rim and standing up. The bubbles stuck his body, obscuring any view Natasha may or may not have wanted to have.

“Exactly.” It was such a train wreck she couldn’t look away. She didn’t even want to know what he’d been doing, and she could only hope it was because he thought she wouldn’t be home until tomorrow. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to open the vodka that’s been in the freezer for a month.”

Clint whined and sadly reached down to pull the plug in the tub. The bubbles would take four hours to dissolve and drain, and Natasha made him clean up the mess while she drank straight from the bottle. She refused his welcome home advances and kept to her side of the bed.

 “I won’t do it again,” he said the next morning, throwing away the shower cap.

 Natasha slid a shot glass across the counter. “If you do, make sure we have more alcohol.”


	8. Clintasha -- Matching Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Black clothes, although seemingly one color, never actually match, and damnit that's a problem.

She grumbles loudly enough that it wakes Clint from what had been a deep slumber. He whines into his pillow and looks over to where she’s rummaging through her bureau, pulling out clothes.

“Tasha, what…?”

“None of my shirts match these leggings,” she says. She’s exasperated..

Clint sees now that she’s got her favorite pair of black leggings on and a lacy bra. “Pile of black stuff on the floor, babe,” he mumbles, scooting closer because he’s pretty sure he likes that bra.

“And none of it matches.” She throws a shirt at his face.

“It’s black.”

“Different shades, asshole.” Natasha turns back to the drawer and digs more. She pulls out a shirt with a delighted noise and pulls it on.

Clint whines again. “Liked when it was just the bra, that matched.”

She glares at him, but there’s no heart behind it. “It’s very frustrating, I’ll have you know.”

“Where’re you going?”

“I’m getting us breakfast, and then maybe I’ll let you take a closer look at your new favorite article of clothing.”


	9. Clintasha -- Morning Stillness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quiet moments in bed just before dawn.

She looks so frighteningly small curled beside him in bed, but it’s not worrying him. Natasha is a force of nature, so naturally intimidating so when she allows herself to be vulnerable, she actually looks like her height. It doesn’t help that his most comfy shirt swims on her, and she loves to wear it. It falls off the shoulder when she kneels on his bed, rides up when she rests her legs on his thighs on the sofa, and smells like her when she’s off on some trip and leaves it behind. 

He runs his fingers through her hair, mussing it a little bit before curling around her in a way she only allows him to do. She shifts, pressing her face against his torso, and her breathing evens again. It is moments like this that Clint remembers why he stayed, why he fought for her, and why he stepped down when she told him she didn’t need anyone fighting her battles. These quiet moments between sleep and wakefulness are where he falls in love the most. He won’t tell her this though.

The city may be waking up, but Clint wonders why he is even awake. Perhaps it’s leftover insomnia from his brush with Loki years ago. Perhaps it is just because. He ignores the red hair that is dangerously close to his nose and closes his eyes, thinking about how she will wake him up later, after he has gotten more sleep.


End file.
